As I looked at the site, it reverberated out to the horizons only to
suggest an immobile cyclone while flickering light made the entire
landscape appear to quake. A dormant earthquake spread into the
fluttering stillness, into a spinning sensation without movement. The
site was a rotary that enclosed itself in an immense roundness. From
that gyrating space emerged the possibility of the Spiral Jetty.^34Smithson not only recorded Spiral Jetty in photographs but also
filmed its construction in a movie that describes the forms and life of
the whole site. The photographs and film have become increasingly
important references, because fluctuations in the Great Salt Lake’s
water level often place Spiral Jetty underwater.
CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDELike Smithson,Christo
and Jeanne-Claude(both b. 1935) seek to intensify the viewer’s
awareness of the space and features of rural and urban sites. How-
ever, rather than physically alter the land itself, as Smithson often
did, Christo and Jeanne-Claude prompt this awareness by temporar-
ily modifying the landscape with cloth. Christo studied art in his na-
tive Bulgaria and in Vienna. After a move to Paris, he began to encase
objects in clumsy wrappings, thereby appropriating bits of the real
world into the mysterious world of the unopened package whose
contents can be dimly seen in silhouette under the wrap.
Starting in 1961, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, husband and wife,
began to collaborate on large-scale projects that normally deal with
the environment itself. For example, in 1969 the couple wrapped a
million square feet of Australian coast and in 1972 hung a vast cur-
tain across a valley at Rifle Gap, Colorado. Their works of art require
years of preparation and research and scores of meetings with local
authorities and interested groups of local citizens. These temporary
works are usually on view for only a few weeks.
Surrounded Islands 1980–83 (FIG. 36-73), created in Biscayne
Bay in Miami, Florida, for two weeks in May 1983, typifies Christo
and Jeanne-Claude’s work. For this project, they surrounded 11 small
human-made islands in the bay (from a dredging project) with 6.5
million square feet of specially fabricated pink polypropylene float-
ing fabric. This Environmental artwork required three years of prepa-
ration to obtain the necessary permits and to assemble the labor force
and obtain the $3.2 million needed to complete the project. The
artists raised the money by selling preparatory drawings, collages,
models, and works they created in the 1950s and 1960s. Huge crowds
watched as crews removed accumulated trash from the 11 islands (to
assure maximum contrast between their dark colors, the pink of the
cloth, and the blue of the bay) and then unfurled the fabric “cocoons”
to form magical floating “skirts” around each tiny bit of land. Despite
the brevity of its existence,Surrounded Islands 1980–83 lives on in the
host of photographs, films, and books documenting the project.Architecture and Site-Specific Art 101536-73Christoand Jeanne-Claude,Surrounded Islands 1980–83, Biscayne Bay, Miami, Florida,1980–1983.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude created this Environmental artwork by surrounding 11 small islands with 6.5 million square feet of pink fabric.
Characteristically, the work existed for only two weeks.